_The_ Chevalier Danceny _to the_ Marchioness de Merteuil.
O you, whom I love! O thou, whom I adore! O you, with whom my happiness
hath commenced! O thou, who hast completed it! Compassionate friend!
tender mistress! why does the reflection that you are a prey to grief
come to disturb my charmed mind? Ah, Madam! resume your calmness; it is
the duty of friendship to make this entreaty. O my heart’s only object!
be happy; it is the prayer of love.
What reproaches have you to make to yourself? Believe me, your
extraordinary delicacy misleads you. The regret it occasions you,
the injuries it charges me with, are equally imaginary; and I feel
within my heart, that there has been between us no other seducer than
love. No longer dread, then, to yield to those sentiments you inspire,
or to partake of a flame you have kindled. What! would we have had
more reason to boast of purity in our connection, if it had taken
more time to form? Undoubtedly not. That is the characteristic of
seduction, which, never acting unless by projects, is able to regulate
its progress and means, and foresees events at a great distance: but
true love does not permit that kind of meditation and reflection; it
diverts us from thought with occupying us wholly with sentiments. Its
empire is never more powerful than when unknown; and it is in obscurity
and silence that it steals upon us, and binds us in chains equally
impossible to be perceived or to be broken.
Thus, even yesterday, notwithstanding the lively emotions which the
idea of your return caused in me, in defiance of the extreme pleasure
I felt on seeing you, I nevertheless thought myself led and called
upon by serene friendship alone, or rather entirely absorbed by the
sweet sentiments of my heart, I concerned myself very little in tracing
either their cause or origin. Like me, my dear friend, you experienced,
though unconscious of it, that all-powerful charm, which gave up our
whole souls to the rapturous impression of tenderness, and neither of
us recognised it to be love, till after the intoxication that deity
plunged us into.
But that very circumstance is our exculpation, instead of our guilt.
No, you did not betray the rights of friendship, nor have I abused
your confidence. We both, it is true, were ignorant of our sentiments;
but we only underwent the delusion, without any efforts to give
birth to it: and far from complaining of it, let us only think of the
happiness it procured us, without disturbing it by unjust reproaches;
let our only endeavours be to farther augment it, by the pleasures of
confidence and entire security. O, my friend! how dear these hopes
are to my heart! Yes, henceforward freed from all fears, and wholly
occupied by love, you will participate of my desires, of my transports,
of the sweet delirium of my senses, of the intoxication of my soul, and
each moment of our happy days shall be marked by a new enjoyment.
Adieu, thou whom I adore! I shall see thee this evening; but shall I
find you alone? I hardly dare to hope it. Ah! you do not desire it as
much as I!
_Paris, Dec._ 1, 17—.